An old friend goes missing, and you receive her phone in the mail...

[RangerWickett]

Curious how people would react to this scenario. An old friend has been living overseas, and you hear there's a crime spree happening in the city she's in. So you call to check on her, but it goes to voicemail. You email her, and get no response. Then, three days later, you receive a package -- postmarked before the crime spree started -- that contains her smartphone.

What do you do?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Me? I'm a black guy...and i know how these movies work!

I'm taking that phone to the cops IMMEDIATELY! If I do anything else, I'm either their first suspect or the bad guy's next victim.

 

[El Mahdi]

I'd take the phone to my genius computer-hacking friend that lives in a crappy apartment, and have him find whatever secret files, pictures, or other info on the phone that was the real reason for her disappearance...then after he's killed, I'd run until I hook up with a loner, disillusioned ex-Navy SEAL whom after the bad guys kill his dog, helps me take the fight to the bad guys, find my freind, and save the world from THEM* in the process.


*THEM = Totally Horrible Enemy Masses

 

[Wednesday Boy]

Interesting....

I'd check to see who she called last or most frequently to see if anything stood out there. If she was still logged into her e-mail I'd check which e-mails were unopened to set up a timeline of when she stopped communicating. And I'd fiddle around with it to see if there are any messages to me that would explain why it was sent to me.

 

[Aeolius]

They're rebooting Romancing the Stone ?

 

[Loonook]

They're rebooting Romancing the Stone ?

Yes! I knew it sounded familiar.... But I couldn't think of anything but Michael Douglas. And then it went to Catherine Zeta-Jones, then... Well, I just sort of wandered from there.

If I received such a thing I would probably immediately hand it over to someone to check out, and they could hopefully get in touch with the consulate or similar entity to fix this whole issue. It's just difficult to ponder as I know you want me to jump on it, but... It would be a possible piece of evidence and I just don't want to end up in the second act of Law and Order: International Weird Crimes Unit.

Slainte,

-Loonook.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Curious how people would react to this scenario. An old friend has been living overseas, and you hear there's a crime spree happening in the city she's in. So you call to check on her, but it goes to voicemail. You email her, and get no response. Then, three days later, you receive a package -- postmarked before the crime spree started -- that contains her smartphone.

What do you do?

Can I access the phone? Cause if not then i am not going to try some amateur cracking. Go to the cops explain the situation and see if they can help or at least retrive information from the phone.
If I can access the phone then go to a nearby large town and have a good look at the phone contents, pay particular attention to last called list. email. photos, documents. Talk to the police and see if they can help.
Contact the relevant consular offie and see what they can do.
Contact the persons family and perhaps pool resources to hire a private detective.

 

[Kaodi]

Since I have become in the last year a complete tub of lard, and I have no combat skills, after looking over the phones contents myself (including checking around the battery, and plugging any cards it has into a computer first) I would probably end up having to give it to someone with actual qualifications to handle. I would help that person as much as I could, and if everything went sour in the end, dedicate myself to revenge.

 

[Piratecat]

What I DON'T do: call up a mutual friend and say "I think I know why our friend disappeared, but there's just one thing I have to check out. I'll meet you later."

Narrative causality turns that into an immediate death sentence.

 

[Zephrin the Lost]

text this to every number in the phone:

I don't know who you are. I don't know what you want. If you are looking for ransom, I can tell you I don't have money. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills; skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you let my friend go now, that'll be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you. But if you don't, I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you.

because, DAMN, how often will you get a chance to say that?

--Z

 

[Piratecat]

Dude, you tell me that every week. Twice on St. Patrick's Day.

 

[MatthewJHanson]

I'd assume that there's a reason she sent it to me, and try to figure out what it was. Check recent texts, look for any apps that might have clues. (I'd probably also call the police).

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

text this to every number in the phone:

I don't know who you are. I don't know what you want. If you are looking for ransom, I can tell you I don't have money. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills; skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you let my friend go now, that'll be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you. But if you don't, I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you.

because, DAMN, how often will you get a chance to say that?

--Z

Then you'll have to explain to some of them how you accidentally butt-threat-texted them.

 

[Zephrin the Lost]

Then you'll have to explain to some of them how you accidentally butt-threat-texted them.

True. I'd also have to deal with all the kidnapped folk who aren't my friend such a wide broadcast threat would undoubtedly release.

--Z

 

[freeAgent]

In real life I'd take the phone to the police

In an RPG or movie setting, I would probably see who's listed in the Emergency Contacts (since I assume the phone is locked and has a password protecting it which I don't know) to see who/what is listed. If the phone isn't locked, I would probably check the call and txt history as well as any other histories or logs I can find on the phone, including photos and videos. I'd probably also check the package to see if I recognize the handwriting on the address label, if there's a return address, anything out of place, etc.

 

[Janx]

Following standard protocol for all pacakages arriving at the Jelantru household:

I pick up the package while wearing gloves. I run it through the scanner, see if it's a bomb.

I take pictures of it and the labe ls, and store them on my multi-site replicated server. I'll be having the techs track down the shipping info to confirm who sent it.

I put it into my hazmat glove box and seal it. Then I stick my arms into the gloves and open the package carefully. On establishing that it is a smart phone, I'll be getting prints taken off the package and the phone to confirm who all handled it.

While the prints are being looked up, hook up the memory to an isolated computer and check its contents. examine emails, contact list, call logs, text logs. identify sources on all of those and check for any indications as to what my friend was up to before the phone was sent to me.

At this point, I should have some leads to go on, and I can send in Jack Bauer to track down the leads. Odds are good the problem will be solved within 24 hours.

 

[SiderisAnon]

In real life: Check if there are any obvious messages on the phone -- meaning notes or something because you can't generally access voice mail without a password. (I would wear gloves while doing this because I work with criminal attorneys and know the basics of forensics.)

If there's nothing obvious from my friend saying what I'm supposed to do with this, I move on to the next logical step. I contact the FBI. Not the local police because they can't do a thing in a situation like this. If it's a kidnapping, the FBI is the place to start. They will know the right State Department people to contact and move from there. Basically, I'm now out of it, other than answering questions for the real investigators.

Unless my friend is rich or her family has influence, nothing ever comes of it because there isn't enough money to follow up on every possible kidnapping. Friend dies in a hole in the ground when the ransom isn't paid. (I sure couldn't afford to pay it.)

(If the friend works for a company down there, like an oil company say, I also contact them so they can notify their people who handle such things. I figure the company has more stake in not losing employees than the overworked FBI.)


In a game world: Either I or my plucky contact analyze the phone for all data, hack the phone company for a list of every tower its pinged off of (or satellite if it's a satellite phone), ultimately tracking down every place this phone has been. Assuming I haven't been contacted by the kidnappers to give me a better lead, either I or I and my group of oddly well qualified buddies go visit this kidnapping playground and track down my friend.

(If it's a group of friends, one or more will have to die to give the adventure depth. If I'm alone, I have to be having some serious angst about how worried I am about this friend, or possibly regrets because I never told her I love her and want to marry her, or maybe just over how I somehow ruined this person's life. Gotta get some story in somehow.)

And the tracking down part assumes I didn't just somehow access a super military or Google satellite and get realtime data of exactly where the phone is so I can see everywhere it went before I leave town.

 

[Wednesday Boy]

I'd check to see who she called last or most frequently to see if anything stood out there. If she was still logged into her e-mail I'd check which e-mails were unopened to set up a timeline of when she stopped communicating. And I'd fiddle around with it to see if there are any messages to me that would explain why it was sent to me.

That was if it was an RPG. In real life I would check to see if they were still signed into Facebook, then make embarassing updates as them.

 

[Deset Gled]

I'd start by checking their photo gallery for fun and naughty personal pictures.

What? Don't look at me like that. I'm not the bad guy here, I'm just the only one willing to admit it.

 

[Umbran]

What do I, as in real-world me, with my real-world skill set, do?

My friend disappeared overseas? Do I have resources appropriate for doing globe-trotting investigative work? The plane tickets and hotel rooms alone would quickly drain my available funds pretty quickly, and the language barriers would make me ineffective at following leads in non-English-speaking lands.

So, realistically, either the oversees angle is a red herring, I am effectively the password-keeper for the phone, or I am being set up.